2004 Rieger Organ - Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church- Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania 

Incentive= I remember reading a BMPC document where they claimed Rieger would "give us a full-value trade-in of the original Rieger organ" (which cost $300K IIRC)

The old organ was a Welte, and since the Rieger was dedicated 4/75, the Welte was probably removed in 1973 or 1974

@Fredrik Larsson the best thing that can be said of this organ is that it doesn't sound like a Rieger. I'm not quite sure what it does sound like, though - it doesn't have the warmth, power or colour of a Cavaillé-Coll. It's sort of a diet low-sugar low-fat skimmed-milk version of one.

@Fredrik Larsson in a building this size, Cavaillé-Coll would have provided a 2-manual organ of no more than thirty stops, certainly no 32fts, likely only one 16ft reed on the whole organ, and yet it would have had more warmth, colour and strength of character than this has. A real C-C Montre, Gambe, Flûte Harmonique, Basson-Hautbois etc would have far more impact than those in this 59-stop Rieger do. Personally, given the dry acoustic at Bryn Mawr, I would not have attempted a French style organ there, but rather an English late Romantic organ, almost all enclosed, in Audsley fashion, to enable it to be used fully without deafening. Ironically, it would probably work a lot better in the now very generous acoustic at Wanamakers, where the 402-stop monster is severely lacking any real organ tone. Hopefully Peter Richard Conte's successor will have the guts to tackle a rethink of that organ's structures and ensembles - not discarding pipework, just making additions and revoicing/rebalancing what is there to match. Replacing the existing uninspiring case (squat, dumpy, shallow and empty) with a deeper, taller case containing new Great and Pedal divisions would be an immense help to that organ... but I digress. This Rieger could usefully be transferred to Philadelphia's Catholic cathedral, which has the acoustic to cope with a Cavaillé-Coll copy but a very sickly bastardised mongrel of an organ, and be revoiced closer to C-C to suit (and be converted to electric action, of course). The Rieger case at Bryn Mawr would be retained to house its Audsleyesque EP-action successor.

There is actually a very good book in german called "Die Orgel - Kulturgeschichte eines monumentalen Instruments" by Karl-Heinz Göttert. I don't know, if there is an english translation. But if there is, it is exactly what you want and even more! I truly love this book.

I wonder if Organ Media Foundation could attempt a video explaining the differences. Just a thought.

Just listen to the old big organs in the cathedrals of each country and you quickly pick up the unique overall sound of each country....don't forget Spain whose organs have an even different flavour.

It also depends on the era. German Baroque is different than German Romantic. Furthermore, German Baroque had major regional differences.

9:48 - discussion of combining the 8' stops (Montre, Gambe, Bourdon, and Flûte Harmonique) on this organ - every stop adds a distinct colour

It was the largest AMERICAN Rieger (the 1972 instrument)

@@GabrielPierne and possibly the largest mechanical action organ they had built? The Konzerthaus organ is EP.

@@richardharrold9736 at the time, possibly… but they do now have 4 and 5 manual instruments with 80+ ranks with mechanical key action.

@@andrewpearce2562 They are brilliantly creating immense mechanical action organs now... especially for the far east... but of course, also the Philharmonie in Paris (fabulous organ) and of course the Wien concert hall.... also sublime. But the 1972 organ was large for them at the time AND placed in an extremely tight case (so compact that maintenance was very challenging..... even tuning some stops required removing swell shutters and in some cases, removing pipes in order to access out of tune pipes behind them)

@@GabrielPierne funny, I thought the Paris Philharmonie organ sounded utterly horrid and completely unsuited to its purpose - give me the RAH Willis/Harrison for that job any day! - but maybe it was just Latry finding the ugliest and most bizarre noises it could make. Also, mechanical action is overrated. There are two large-ish 4-manual Riegers here in the UK, Christ Church Oxford (1979) and St Marylebone London (1993), the former replacing a Willis/Harrison in the same case (the original lower part of which Rieger replaced with a taller one!), the latter supplanting an Anglo-German Romantic bitsa (the Great chorus was Schulze) that wasn't even in the same place but got removed anyway... luckily the bulk of it survived in a museum, and as with Christ Church, the 32ft Open Wood discarded by Rieger found a new home. Neither of these organs is much liked by the people who have to play it, and Marylebone swiftly got the crap kicked out of it by Royal Academy of Music students - there was hardly a stop-knob that hadn't been broken and crudely reglued, and the key actions were in a dire state of regulation - this only about five years after installation. The tide has now turned and Britain is once again an exporter of organs, not an importer.

So nice to read this! You've a great memory, though I was a student of Russell Saunders (but a good friend of David Craighead, who in the 1940's was organist at Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, which had a buried-in-the-tower Welte. David was a student at Curtis at the time.

Those are not trackers, but mostly pneumatic action cone chest and were built by the founders of the Rieger firm. Indeed, they do sound very beautiful. The Rieger instruments of today use tracker action and are often in the french symphonic style.

I'd love that.... its' a very different instrument, quite beautiful in its own right.

Thanks for listening! YES, two recordings have been made. The first is a stunning disc by Aaron Tan, winner of AGO NYACOP. The second, will be released by Eric Plutz…. Vierne Symphonies.

All improvisation

There's only one church in Paris with an acoustic this dry, and that is Saint-Etienne du Mont.

I wondered the same thing! It sounded like they had a very large budget to say the least!

If i remember correctly, the budget in 2001 was $2.5 million, a fair price, with Rieger giving us a discount on top of that for taking back the old organ. Today, 20 years later, the replacement value got to be in excess of $5 million

I asked about that when it was being installed. The number I was told was 4.5 million.

Cavaille-Coll organs almost never have pedal mixtures. An organ does not need a pedal mixture in order to be successful; just couple the Grand Orgue or Positif to the Pedal instead!

No need for a Tuba in an organ like this, and chamades even in the French style as part of the ensemble would be overkill in that relatively dry room.

Nah, American organs pre 1928 are pretty much useless for Bach, usually nothing above 4ft on the Great, maybe a 2ft if you're lucky, only a Dolce Cornet in the Swell, the 4fts are half the power of the 8fts, and everything just dies in the treble.

@@richardharrold9736 as a senior-citizen student organist preparing for a post-retirement bucket-list vocation, I thank you for your response. I refer to Bach as the composer discussed in Schweitzer’s volumes -as commissioned by Mssr. CM Widor; as such I regard Herr Bach’s music as pure music; this supersedes the strict discussions of instrumental authenticity for a given epoch. Schweitzer referred to the Master as an objective composer and this is the context -inclusive of his devout Christian ethos-I suggest. Moreover, I appreciate Mssr Latry’s perspectives as well. Also my sincere complements, respect, and admiration to the organist at Bryn Mawr not only for his adroit demonstration of the renewed Reiger(sp?) but also his remarks viz the Hammond B3. Would love to hear his or Mssr Latry’s extemporization on that.

@@dkeithtag while not disagreeing with you, there comes a point where attempting Bach is pointless if any contrapuntal clarity is impossible to achieve in the tonal fog of thick, heavy 8ft tone. Such organs, where they survive, must either be embraced for what they are, or carefully revoiced and rebalanced to make them work better. A Skinner with nothing above 4ft on the Great could have a 2⅔, 2ft and Mixture added in suitable period style, and the trebles of the foundational ranks opened up to increase the brilliance of the ensemble, without detracting from the quality of what Skinner did best. Ditto any other organ of that era suffering similar lack of brilliance.